As a young athlete who once dreamed of competing at the Olympic Games, Geoff’s photography tangent was an unlikely detour that would eventually turn into the main thing. In pursuit of greatness through a different discipline, he still finds himself side by side with the world’s greatest athletes. As his reputation in sports photography continues to grow, we caught up with Geoff Lowe to talk about his craft and his expanding impact on contemporary sports photography.

Can you describe the moment you knew you were going to be a sports photographer?

If I have to pick a specific moment,

I would say it was at the 2017 World Athletics Championships in London. I had bought a ticket as a fan, and I noticed photographers on the track that night. It sparked something in my brain that I could be there instead of sitting in these stands. I started investigating how to get access to these events, and my professional journey began.

I read that you were once an athlete and dreamed of competing in the Olympics. What then sparked the transition from pursuing sport to capturing it through photography?

I think as an athlete, I lacked the discipline and commitment needed to focus and dedicate time to training. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice everything needed to achieve greatness athletically. As I got older, I found my obsession with sport at the highest level would manifest through my other passion, which was photography. I ended up being on that track and in the places I dreamed of…but not in the way I imagined.

In the end I think it was even better than I imagined as now I get to spend time with athletes in their worlds, i get to see how greatness lives and thinks and works…and I get to dip in and out of all these different sports its very inspiring and seeing 80year old photographers shooting their 15th Olympics, lets me know I could do this for as long as it makes me happy.

Since 2018, you’ve been photographing global athletes on the biggest stages. In one word, how has that experience been for you?

Impactful

Has there been a particular Olympic image or moment you captured that you feel truly encapsulates the spirit of the Games? Why?

The images that combine athletes from many different countries. I feel that it encapsulates the spirit of the games the best. It’s not about the winners, it’s about the colourfulness and diversity of the athletes representing their nations on the world’s biggest stage. Most recently, the images I made of snowboarders, speed skaters, and bobsleigh athletes.

You recently photographed athletes at the Milano-Cortina Olympics. What was that experience like for you, and how does shooting multiple sports across different venues each day influence your creative focus or workflow during the Games?

For the Winter Olympics, it was just a personal project and I was able to create my own schedule of what I wanted to shoot without any time pressure to deliver anything to anyone. The different venues were very far apart, and I would spend 3 hours in a car on a good day from home to the venue and back. And when I shot bobsled in Cortina, it was a 12-hour drive to shoot 2 hours of sport.

Every hour in that car was absolutely worth it to capture these moments. Unlike the summer Olympics, I had never seen any of these winter sports live. So to experience the cold and the snow and the incredible skill of these athletes on the ice was such an exciting feeling every day.

Your composite sequence technique has become a signature style for you. Can you speak briefly about how it works and why you’re drawn to it?

What I love most about this technique is that we can control space and time, blurring reality just enough to create the feeling of a dream world, to slow down time, and stretch out a second of movement by combining many images shot in rapid succession.

Or compressing time by shooting many athletes occupying the same space over a period of time.

It’s a fun way to show a hidden story of what we could see if the rules of physics did not apply.

In your view, what makes a great sports photograph, and how have you developed that eye over time?

So many things.

A great sports photograph can be an iconic moment.

It can be a look into somebody’s world to feel an emotion with the help of lighting or focal length.

It could also just be a simple motion, a beautiful pattern, or shape created by movement or body position.

And if you are lucky, it can be all three.

How does it feel to have your photography be a major talking point during world events like the Olympics?

Sometimes it does not feel real at all.

Shooting international events such as the Olympics really puts your images in front of many more eyes than you could imagine. And to hear people discussing them and the different feelings people have about them around the world, really makes me feel grateful and inspires me to keep showing up and creating more